[Bug 837681] [NEW] Automatic partitioning corrupts GUID partition table (GPT)

Chad A. Davis chad.a.davis at gmail.com
Tue Aug 30 20:50:34 UTC 2011 

Public bug reported:

With a functioning Oneiric installation on a MacBookPro6,2 I installed
Oneiric again and chose the automatic partition resize option. This
corrupted the partition table, preventing booting of either operating
system. It also doesn't appear possible to repair the system, as no
tools can read the partition table to mount / fix the situation.

TEST CASE
Install Oneiric on a GPT machine (e.g. a Mac) with an empty partition table. Start by creating a swap partition of the size of the RAM. Then create an ext4 (the default) partition for the remaining space, but leave ~1MB for the GPT / bios_grub partition. The installer (partman-efi?) will place the GPT / bios_grub partition in this free space. This system boots correctly. 

Now install a second instance of Oneiric and select automatic resize of
existing partitions, leaving the default settings (50% of space
allocated to each system)

That resulted in this partition table (from sfdisk -l) :

Disk /dev/sda: 38913 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1          0+    497-    498-   4000000+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
		start: (c,h,s) expected (0,0,35) found (1023,254,63)
		end: (c,h,s) expected (497,249,43) found (1023,254,63)
/dev/sda2   *    497+  20035-  19538- 156933594   83  Linux
		start: (c,h,s) expected (497,249,44) found (1023,254,63)
/dev/sda3      20035+  20035-      1-       977   ee  GPT
/dev/sda4      20035+  38408-  18374- 147583008   83  Linux

palimsest reports that the disk is unpartitioned.

gparted reports erros on the two ext4 partitions:

e2label: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sda2
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
dumpe2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
dumpe2fs: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sda2

gparted reports for the bios_grub partition:

Unable to detect file system! Possible reasons are:
- The file system is damaged
- The file system is unknown to GParted
- There is no filesystem available (unformatted)
- The device entry /dev/sda3 is missing

The problem is not the result of having two systems installed. If you
install a system with the partitioning option to use the entire disk and
then install another system that automatically resizes existing
partitions, then both systems boot correctly.

I don't think there was too little space left from my manual
partitioning of the initial system, because the initial operating system
booted fine.

Maybe the problem is having the GPT / bios_grub partition at the end of
the partition table, since the default is to place it at the beginning
of the partition table (when installing with the partitioning option to
use the entire disk).

Unfortunately, I can no longer access the logs, as I cannot mount the
partitions.

This is the ISO ubuntu-oneiric-alternate-amd64+mac.iso from 2011-08-29

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: ubiquity 2.7.17
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-9.14-generic 3.0.3
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-9-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.279
Date: Tue Aug 30 20:11:08 2011
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Alpha amd64+mac (20110829)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

** Affects: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug iso-testing oneiric running-unity

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/837681

Title:
  Automatic partitioning corrupts GUID partition table (GPT)

Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  With a functioning Oneiric installation on a MacBookPro6,2 I installed
  Oneiric again and chose the automatic partition resize option. This
  corrupted the partition table, preventing booting of either operating
  system. It also doesn't appear possible to repair the system, as no
  tools can read the partition table to mount / fix the situation.

  TEST CASE
  Install Oneiric on a GPT machine (e.g. a Mac) with an empty partition table. Start by creating a swap partition of the size of the RAM. Then create an ext4 (the default) partition for the remaining space, but leave ~1MB for the GPT / bios_grub partition. The installer (partman-efi?) will place the GPT / bios_grub partition in this free space. This system boots correctly. 

  Now install a second instance of Oneiric and select automatic resize
  of existing partitions, leaving the default settings (50% of space
  allocated to each system)

  That resulted in this partition table (from sfdisk -l) :

  Disk /dev/sda: 38913 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
  Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

     Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
  /dev/sda1          0+    497-    498-   4000000+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
  		start: (c,h,s) expected (0,0,35) found (1023,254,63)
  		end: (c,h,s) expected (497,249,43) found (1023,254,63)
  /dev/sda2   *    497+  20035-  19538- 156933594   83  Linux
  		start: (c,h,s) expected (497,249,44) found (1023,254,63)
  /dev/sda3      20035+  20035-      1-       977   ee  GPT
  /dev/sda4      20035+  38408-  18374- 147583008   83  Linux

  palimsest reports that the disk is unpartitioned.

  gparted reports erros on the two ext4 partitions:

  e2label: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sda2
  Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
  Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
  dumpe2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
  dumpe2fs: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sda2

  gparted reports for the bios_grub partition:

  Unable to detect file system! Possible reasons are:
  - The file system is damaged
  - The file system is unknown to GParted
  - There is no filesystem available (unformatted)
  - The device entry /dev/sda3 is missing

  The problem is not the result of having two systems installed. If you
  install a system with the partitioning option to use the entire disk
  and then install another system that automatically resizes existing
  partitions, then both systems boot correctly.

  I don't think there was too little space left from my manual
  partitioning of the initial system, because the initial operating
  system booted fine.

  Maybe the problem is having the GPT / bios_grub partition at the end
  of the partition table, since the default is to place it at the
  beginning of the partition table (when installing with the
  partitioning option to use the entire disk).

  Unfortunately, I can no longer access the logs, as I cannot mount the
  partitions.

  This is the ISO ubuntu-oneiric-alternate-amd64+mac.iso from 2011-08-29

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
  Package: ubiquity 2.7.17
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-9.14-generic 3.0.3
  Uname: Linux 3.0.0-9-generic x86_64
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperVersion: 1.279
  Date: Tue Aug 30 20:11:08 2011
  LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Alpha amd64+mac (20110829)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: ubiquity
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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